


"Bastard"

by OMDrawings



Series: Intervals of the In-Between [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Location? What's a location? That's not important here, Mentions Riku Kairi Sora Roxas Xion Namine Replica Riku, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:28:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22624807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMDrawings/pseuds/OMDrawings
Summary: "True kinship has naught to do with blood ties, however strong they be. I think we are all kin, brothers and sisters one to the other, all children of all parents. And the birthright I once sought, I seek it no longer."- Lloyd Alexander, "Taran Wanderer: The Chronicles of Prydain"
Relationships: Terra & Xehanort (Kingdom Hearts), Terra & Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts), Xehanort & Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Intervals of the In-Between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627720
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	"Bastard"

Kinship.

What was it?

_Kin-ship_.

The relations of oneself to that of a parent. A concept of being “loved”, “treasured”, even, and held with such fondness only that of a mother’s eye can provide.

So many conflicts surrounded the idea, did they not? Of _true_ kinship.

_“Through blood and bone, shall our alliance run longest—sing deafeningly—and mature formidable.”_

He’d seen that very idea tossed about in literature. Family: its importance, its ties. How relation, above all else, was undeniable whether one accepted the reality or not.

How one could try all they might—the truth was there in the proverbial jester’s veins: what biological ties muddily coursed through you, a symbol of empire tied far beyond name alone. Why, it ascended the simple bond a deaf title made.

All stories carried some say of realism, did they not? No fiction was without its influence.

Epics of monarchies, tragedies of mafia, chronicles of domesticity. Endless rabbit holes of examples, one after the other baring the sappy and sins of the concept. Of horror to bleed from such kinship, of the greatest happiness one could obtain.

A gradient, entirely.

However, those dramas did not choke the library that he can recall. Another, more prominent allusion connected them:

_“True kinship has naught to do with blood ties, however strong they be. I think we are all kin, brothers and sisters one to the other, all children of all parents.”_

Which was it?

Which was the strongest, which defined, truly, what kinship was? Which was obtainable to _him_?

The enigma for the evening, he hummed, through lungs constructed entirely of lost shadow, there stood in the midnight’s void.

Could his realm answer him now? Perhaps not.

So began the walk. To where?

Anywhere and nowhere.

To find what?

An answer to a question he could never understand the depths of.

If kinship were by the blood that built one’s body, then who were his sire and who his dam?

Did he have them, to begin with? Did he ever have the luxury of mind to believe himself more than the Frankenstein’s monster he was?

His mind, there in the echoing chamber of infinitely expanding walls, was free to sift the memories of those not his own. Even if voices lulled him towards the vibrant iron-laced horrors, sinning and praising all at once, they filed away to nothing but whispers for now.

As soles paced straight into the familiar unknown, faded images of long-forgotten reel excavated from the archives he encompassed.

There was one.

_A woman of tanned chocolate gazed with faded grey to the sea line. Her hands, worn, worried themselves over the wooden railing painted in soft orange light._

_Sunrise. The time of revelation, where light first cast itself to subjects once hidden in shadow._

_“You’re leaving, then?” Hidden sorrow laced her words. Eyes never leaving the horizon’s painting of pinks, reds, and oranges._

_“Yes—there’s nothing I can do to prevent it. It’s my destiny.” He would be arriving soon. To whisk the boy away to promised lands of fantastic scale. Like something out of fiction, he was promised._

_But she—his mother—didn’t need to know the details of dangerous exploits that would entail his travels._

_Her lips hesitated. They parted, paused, and closed. The words died on her tongue. What would she have said? Begged him to stay, questioned where he was going? Why he decided their little island wasn’t enough—why what she provided was never enough?_

_A tear fell behind silvered hair, the sight a picture he would never forget._

_“Alright,” She whispered, “Just promise me you’ll be safe.” It was her final plea: and with it, a silent acceptance. Her child, her pup—chick—cub—silvered calf—was leaving the nest. Her nest. He was leaving her. He was growing up._

_His hand, its mimicking shade, rested to her shoulder. “Of course. I promise I’ll try.”_

_“I love you.”_

_“I love you, too.”_

_The unspoken ‘I’m sorry’ haunted him._

He paused in his travel.

This memory—no, this echo—it was… _wrong_.

Yet it was all the same: correct.

“I love you,” those simple words. Why did their simplicity, spoken by lips not his own, directed to someone not _him_ , leave him longing? How did their hushed delivery ring deafeningly in his ears, and hollow his chest?

Was it her? ~~His~~ Mother? To know of her stresses, to see her resolve break? What ever happened to her? He never went back, did he? To her? To the island?

He could never return to the island.

No… No, that was _wrong_.

That wasn’t _him_. That was never _him_ , was it?

Xehanort—that was Xehanort.

A hand held a crumbling forehead. His groan, inaudible. His troubles, vociferous. As surely as he had ordered his mind, it was thrown to chaos all again.

If not her… who—where—was his dam? His sire?

To whom did his creation truly lie?

There was no destination in mind as he wandered, lethargic, through the windless, sky-less valley of obscuration. He roamed, a Heart without body (yet here, he was free to manipulate his own understanding to pretend he was whole) through the realm of his commanding.

His mind kept returning to _her_. To the woman revealed in memory—to her face, her voice, the warmth that seeped into the hand that dared to touch her after such a despicable truth. The more he thought on it, the less he could bring himself to see that woman, that ‘mother’, as his own.

Nor even the island so many cobwebbed memories played.

_The island_ , his… home(?).

He had been there twice, hadn’t he? Not to return to her. No… to find the _child_. Of pale hair, raw knees, and wide blue eyes. His Heart—it was strong. Fitting of a guardian, to protect and hold secrets for the benefit of the ones he cared for.

There, knelt in the sand, did he bequeath the blade. There, on the island, did their Hearts connect. He—No. No, no, that was not _him_. It had never been him.

Terra—it was _Terra’s_ hands that passed the lineage down, the oath, and strength. All to the open palms of a boy who would one day have his very home crumble from under his feet.

They all would… they all had, did they not?

Their home—their island, the very same sand Xehanort, Terra, and _he_ had walked across. Had been born from, and yet never touched.

He destroyed it. His being ruined it. Heart and body both, even if one’s hands enacted it without the others’ knowing. He did know, in some way—felt the Hearts escape to his magnum opus far away from the minds of the children chosen to challenge the Darkness.

They all had families. They all had _mothers_ and _fathers_ and _dreams, hopes, wants_ —as _he_ did. He destroyed that.

He robbed them of their innocence, and for what?

To gain an existence greater than the nothingness he already possessed? To feel? To _live_ , and awake to some mechanical rhythm beneath his chest?

How many Hearts—how many _children_ , did he ruin?

Families—kinship—the very concept he lusted after yet could not understand despite the damned Heart he now could claim his own—how many had he unraveled and plunged into everlasting Darkness?

Sora… Riku… Kairi.

Three of the Lights chosen; three souls robbed of their youth—forced to act as the adults and right the wrong of the infantile pursuits he chased after.

Roxas… Xion… Naminé… the Replica Riku.

They never even had the luxury to be _born_ of love. Created—artificial—and left to wander without childhood, without the freedom to develop as themselves. Each one had been thrust to existence, and then locked away just as fast. Forgotten entirely, even.

He looked down—to the false hands he had constructed here and only here. What were they? Not of flesh—barely of shadow.

They were _nothing_.

He was _nothing_.

It kept nagging at him.

A simple word: “birth”. To be born—created.

Beings were never born without want—even if the sentiments became revoked later.

His birth… could it even be called such a feat? It was never beautiful. Only one word could describe his inception: _pain_. A burning, tearing pain that wrecked his entire body until it was over.

(He had been born a twin, had he not?)

(A pity his Heart had never sought to rejoin him in the decades they walked the Realms separate one another.)

Two beings came together to birth him, though. An unholy matrimony—no consent or want held by the body from which he was created. No womb to cradle and prepare his mind. No… Only a bastard of a child to be brought into the world.

That _is_ what he was, was it not?

A bastard.

A child—technically or proverbially—sewn and stitched together by two feuding, unmarried bodies.

Xehanort and Terra…

Xehanort, gifting him stilted, undeveloped purpose and a lineage by name.

Terra, a body to shape and leave his impact through.

…

Yes—yes, it all made sense. Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, after so long.

Xehanort—his sire.

Terra—his dam.

A loveless” marriage” entangled in abuse; Xehanort forcing himself into Terra’s pliable form—predatory obsession through his possession. It was more than just snatching the boy’s body; it had _always_ been more than that.

And from their joining—from the _rape_ of the drugged boy—birthed Xemnas.

He was the bastard.

He had always been that—a _bastard_.

A being of nothing, who meant nothing, and wanted by no one.

Yet, despite that, he was that of Terra and Xehanort— _something_.

…

Xemnas wanted to feel like _something_. He _had to_.

Something more than the _bastard_ he was.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fun character study of Xemnas I did for a wonderful roleplay server I'm a part of. If you're curious, you can find its information [here](https://disboard.org/server/653127840233029654)! (Can you guess who I play as?)
> 
> Special thanks to [sociallyawkwardteen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sociallyawkwardteen/pseuds/sociallyawkwardteen/works?fandom_id=4182) for their collaboration as a beta reader with input for the last few bits involving the mentions of Terra!


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